Down The Rabbit Hole
by ilyahna
Summary: This one's on hold.


Alex Eames stood at the foot of the car, and stared at the western sky. A light wind pulled her hair across her face, and she brushed it away. She jumped in surprise when the lid of the Honda's trunk leapt up.

Bobby appeared beside her, pushing the trunk open. "What is it?" he asked, hefting the cooler out. He set it with a heavy crunch in the gravel of the parking lot.

Alex pointed at the horizon, a dark smudge of clouds on an otherwise fine spring day.

"You sure we should be going out?"

Bobby pulled a blanket out, folding it on top of the cooler. "That's nothing," he assured her. "Get the poles."

Alex cast him a short glance, but did as he suggested and took two fishing poles from the back seat of the car. She had to admit, she was glad Bobby hadn't seemed concerned about the possibility of bad weather; she'd been looking forward to this all week. A Saturday afternoon on a boat, relaxing in the sun with a margarita was exactly what she needed after the case they'd just wrapped up. Oddly enough, it had been her partner's suggestion.

Shouldering her bag, she followed him across the parking lot, across a swath of grass, and onto the wooden dock of the marina. Irregular white masts littered the landscape along the Hudson River, seagulls wheeling among them, almost as numerous as the people that combed the marina. It seemed most of New York had the same idea that her partner had.

"You can't even beat the traffic on the water," she complained to Bobby, but with good humor. The end of one fishing pole, which was easily as tall as she was, caught under her foot and she almost stumbled, catching his arm for support.

"It's a good thing we brought life jackets," Bobby commented, casting her a sidelong smile.

Alex chuckled and hefted the poles a little higher.

It took the better part of a half hour to check in with the marina manager, find their rental among the countless other vessels, and maneuver their things on board. By that time, Alex was ready to skip sailing and go straight to the margarita. Her partner, however, settled the ice chest and motioned her over to the edge of the boat.

"Look at that," he said, pointing toward the eastern edge of the marina.

"What? All I see are boats."

"The tall ship," he said. "See the three masts? It's twice as big as the other ones."

Alex saw it then and nodded. "Ok."

"Tall ships are rare," he told her. "I saw one like that when I was a kid. My dad took me out to the harbor when it passed through. It sailed all the way from Australia. I wonder where that one's from."

Alex stood beside him and stared at the ship for a moment, then held her hand out.

"Gimmie the keys," she said.

-

The Hudson River was almost as crowded as a Manhattan street that day, and Alex guided the boat slowly along the water. Despite the traffic, she was already beginning to unwind with the prospect of being on the open sea, and when the river finally deposited them on the ocean, she increased their speed until they were flying over the waves, leaving the other vessels behind.

Bobby seemed content to share her pleasure in silence, sitting beside her at the wheel, until at last Alex eased down on the throttle and let the boat drift in the current, several miles from shore. She sat for a moment, savoring the distance from the city. The cool northern breeze sent tiny waves lapping into the side of the boat.

Finally, she glanced at Bobby and grinned. "You ready to do some fishing?"

Not long afterward, Alex was settled comfortably in a folding chair at the rear of the boat, her bare feet propped on the metal railing and the heavy fishing rod in lap. She relaxed with the motion of the boat, her sunglasses shielding her eyes from the brightness of the afternoon. She could hear Bobby down below, the sound of clinking ice followed by the whir of a blender. A moment later, he appeared, holding out a red plastic cup.

"You've been waiting a couple of years for this, I think," he said, smiling.

She took the margarita and almost laughed. "I can't believe you remember that," she said. Years ago, she'd made him promise her a margarita after a particularly difficult case, but one thing had led to another, and they'd never gotten around to it. She'd teased him once or twice about breaking his word.

Bobby settled in the chair beside her, his own fishing rod wedged between his knees as he took a drink. "You'd be surprised what I remember," he said softly, his dark eyes on the sea. For a minute, she couldn't read his face, and was about to ask him what he meant by that when he turned back and flashed her a sunny smile.

"I'm glad you said yes," he told her, and the smile slipped a bit. "I didn't think, after what happened last week…"

Alex rested her cup against her knee. "Bobby," she said. "I told you… I didn't mean it like it sounded."

He held her gaze for a moment, then looked back across the railing, nodding.

She could tell he didn't believe her, and wondered if talking about this was really the reason he'd invited her out today. If so, she was a little disappointed; she'd hoped he had let it go.

"Look," she said. "When I said "it's too late," I didn't mean that I was angry at you about it. What's done is done, and I don't lose sleep over it. I don't want to be part of a bureaucracy that steps on people like you anyway."

He turned back to her, searched her face. "Do you mean that?"

Alex simply nodded. He held her gaze for a moment, then his smile returned, bigger and more sincere. He said nothing more about it, and they returned their attention to the sea.

-

Several hours later, the warmth of a beginning sunburn on her shoulders, Alex was below in the cabin, mixing their third round of margaritas. She hummed under her breath as she added ice to the blender, and reflected on how pleasant the afternoon had turned out to be. Despite expressing his concern over her harsh words from weeks before, words they'd never talked about, Bobby's light mood had persisted. The little bit of alcohol they'd had only seemed to enhance his good cheer, and rather than brooding silently beside her as was his wont, he'd kept up a running dialogue on everything from fish to literary classics. Although they'd caught nothing so far, Alex had enjoyed herself, and was glad Bobby seemed to have forgiven her.

She poured the margaritas, and balanced the two cups in her hand. Gripping the rail against the movement of the boat, she mounted the stairs back into the sun. As she stepped back onto the deck, it occurred to her that the wind was blowing a bit harder, and she remembered the clouds she'd seen earlier. She turned, craning her head around the side of the cabin...

…and froze. Drifting just over five hundred feet from their tiny vessel was the monolith image of an aircraft carrier.

"What the…" she began, then turned and yelled over her shoulder. "Bobby, talk about a ship you don't see every day!"

He joined her, peering across the ocean at the massive ship. When Alex glanced at him, she was surprised to see the expression on his face.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Where is everyone?" He glanced briefly at her. "A ship like that would have a crew of… more than three thousand people. There's no one on the deck."

Alex looked back at the ship, frowning. "Maybe they're…" she began, then swallowed her words as a pulse of light leapt from one of the ships towers. "What was that?" Her first thought was that terrorists had taken over a U.S. ship, but she shook that thought out of her head quickly. It was too ridiculous. All at once, she felt their own ship begin to turn on the lee, and she caught at the railing in surprise.

Bobby's hand gripped her arm as their boat turned fully about, the water coming dangerously close to the edge as though something were pulling it from below.

"Bobby what the hell?" she called, dropping the margaritas with a flutter of panic in her chest. They hadn't anchored, so there was no way something was dragging them. Her partner was moving, pulling her toward the other side of the ship, which finally completed its circuit and stopped abruptly, bobbing on the waves. They stood there, clinging to one another for a long moment, adrenaline slowly ebbing away as minutes ticked by and nothing else happened.

Finally, Bobby released her. "Just some… strange current," he said, but Eames could tell from his face he didn't believe that, and it scared her. He was still staring at the air craft carrier, moving at a painfully slow crawl toward the south. Alex looked too, and then noticed something.

"The wind.." she whispered.

Bobby lifted his face toward the sky briefly, then scanned the water. It had become as still and flat as glass, for the breeze which had followed them all day had dried up without warning.

He didn't say anything, but he slowly mounted the ladder to the helm, and turned the keys in the ignition. To Alex's relief, the boat started immediately, and she opened her mouth to tell him to get the hell out of here when another, blinding pulse of light broke from the same tower on the air craft carrier. This one came with a low, reverberating boom, and the whir of their engine abruptly ceased. She saw Bobby turn the keys once, twice, and then a third time. Nothing.

All at once, the boat lurched again, and this time it moved forward with such speed that Alex lost her footing and landed hard against the deck. Then she was sliding forward as the nose of the boat pulled toward the ocean surface. Their folding chairs clattered past her and slammed against the cabin wall.

The sound that had come from the air craft carrier came again, and there was another pulse of light, and then another. Alex scrambled for the life jackets hanging against the door of the cabin, getting her arm through one just as she felt water lapping against her feet. Pulling the jacket free, she sensed Bobby's tall form land roughly beside her, and he was grabbing her arm to steady her as she almost slipped down the cabin stairs.

"What the hell is happening?" she yelled over the ringing in her ears, feeling a strange pressure begin to creep through her. It was in her head, in the muscles of her back, behind her eyes. The nose of the boat was completely submerged now, and water had begun to drain into the cabin at an alarming rate.

"I don't know," Bobby yelled back, bracing himself against the wall and stretching his long arm toward the remaining life jacket that hung on the door. At that moment, there was another flash, this one much brighter, and the sound was deafening, rolling across the waves and swallowing her into unconsciousness.

-

She had lost all sense of time. Distantly, she felt a relaxing, rocking motion, and something cool soothing the ache in her head. Thinking she was dreaming, she turned on her side…

…and woke abruptly when her face submerged in icy water.

Alex panicked, kicked her legs, and rolled over onto her back, gasping. She slapped her arms against the surface and righted herself, shoving hair out of her eyes.

"_Bobby!?_" she screamed. She rotated in the water, and saw him, floating just over ten feet from her, eyes closed. She was in motion, struggling through the waves toward him. Her hands closed on his life vest and she shook him.

"Bobby!!" Her hand thumped his cheek, hard. "Bobby come on…" She had just wedged her fingers beneath his vest to his neck to check for a pulse when he stirred and came to.

"What happened…" he mumbled, his voice sounding thick. He was more calm as he slowly repositioned himself, bobbing in the water beside Alex.

"I don't know," she said, already feeling a bit of calm start to return to her. "Our boat… the aircraft carrier."

Bobby turned about, scanning the ocean. "They're gone…" he said very quietly. "Both of them."

It was the first time Alex had noticed. Now she looked too, rotating three hundred sixty degrees, and seeing nothing but the surface of the sea.

"Bobby.. where's the city?" There wasn't the slightest suggestion of the towers of Manhattan which had still been easily visible on the eastern horizon when she'd looked last, from the deck of their boat.

He looked, and his forehead creased. "I don't know," he whispered, beginning to sound worried. "But this channel is busy… someone will be by…"

-

They floated there, alternately moving their limbs to stave away hypothermia, and resting close to one another in the current. The sun gradually began to sink, the clear skies turning rose pink, and the ocean began to grow darker. Alex fanned her arms beneath the water, and began suddenly to wonder what was beneath them. Did sharks come this far north? She was about to ask Bobby when she felt his hand grip the shoulder of her life vest abruptly.

"Look!" he said, hauling her around and pointing. His hand shook from the cold.

Moving toward them at an angle, visible now that the sun had mostly disappeared, was a ship. Three tall masts stretched toward the sky, white sails taught against a backing wind. It was moving quickly, much more quickly than Alex would have thought a ship like that could move, and as they watched, people gradually became visible on the deck. There was the glint of something metal from the prow, and Alex realized what was odd about it the vessel.

It was made of wood.

A moment later, it was close enough that she could make out the words on the side.

_H.M.S. Druid._


End file.
